The Day the Blues' Early Years Magic Ended in Boston

[TONYstcharles]

It's so easy to second guess the history decades later. (it's what sports fans do). The video clip is from a NESN special "Bobby Orr and the Big Bad Bruins" from a decade ago. NBCSports does a similar program years later. TV38 kept the archives of those Big Bad Bruins teams.

Glenn Hall was the real star of the Blues early success. The '68 Finals were all one goal contest because of his outstanding play. The expansion team was seriously lacking offensive talent compared to Montreal in both Finals. The Blues would continue the wave into year three, but again the '70 Final was lopsided - Hall does make G3 & 4 close. In a SportsIllustrated column May 1970, Salomon Jr. declares: "if the owners really want parity ......give the weaker teams some talent (he refers to the expansion process) ...... "they say we got in for $2M, but we spent another $8M for our building & improvements (a big investment) .... We don't know if we'll be able to compete well enough in the future to make it pay off". STL was not the only team in the west with "concerns". Eager to compete, the new teams trade away draft picks for quick fixes.

The Salomon's were not generational wealthy like the Busch family. By the third season the owners were anticipating concern, but the press & the public were giddy about the Blues popularity, everything appears FINE on the surface with the hockey hysteria in STL. Many factors on/off the ice would lead to Salomon's hardships in the yrs following. The NHL expands + the WHA complicates the salary situation further.

Jay Randolph does the TV play x play on ch 11 KPLR, Gus Kyle would be his color guy for those 11 games the first season (Buck would do those 11 games alone on radio - or a non playing Blue, like Bob Plager would fill). Baseball begins in APR/May ..... Gus Kyle can be heard filing in during spring training (older brother Hal Kelly helps also). Salomon initially offers the job in year two to Danny Gallivan, but turns down the offer to dbl his salary in STL. Dan Kelly gets his salary increase to relocate to MO instead. The Salomon's are generous spending for the Arena and anything concerning the team.

The Arena was 37 yrs old when the Blues move in, it is the main reason STL is awarded the franchise. The Salomon's follow the "expansion process" down to the wire, with the sponsorship of Wirtz/Norris. If ANY of the expansion six don't meet the deadline - Baltimore was the back up locale, (all six meet this deadline).

The first three seasons are "magical" for the fan base in STL, exceeding expectations to the entire NHL. Envy by many in the press, equally loathed by other teams. The conservative original six weren't eagerly helpful towards the '67 expansion six. The early 70s would often resemble a soap opera for the St Louis Blues. Ask anyone who worked for the Salomon's, you rarely hear anything negative. They wanted the Blues to succeed in the worst way, unfortunately bad health for father & son would complicate their lives. The bad decisions are easy to critique decades afterwards.

[Pink Freud]

It's so easy to second guess the history decades later. (it's what sports fans do). The video clip is from a NESN special "Bobby Orr and the Big Bad Bruins" from a decade ago. NBCSports does a similar program years later. TV38 kept the archives of those Big Bad Bruins teams.

Glenn Hall was the real star of the Blues early success. The '68 Finals were all one goal contest because of his outstanding play. The expansion team was seriously lacking offensive talent compared to Montreal in both Finals. The Blues would continue the wave into year three, but again the '70 Final was lopsided - Hall does make G3 & 4 close. In a SportsIllustrated column May 1970, Salomon Jr. declares: "if the owners really want parity ......give the weaker teams some talent (he refers to the expansion process) ...... "they say we got in for $2M, but we spent another $8M for our building & improvements (a big investment) .... We don't know if we'll be able to compete well enough in the future to make it pay off". STL was not the only team in the west with "concerns". Eager to compete, the new teams trade away draft picks for quick fixes.

The Salomon's were not generational wealthy like the Busch family. By the third season the owners were anticipating concern, but the press & the public were giddy about the Blues popularity, everything appears FINE on the surface with the hockey hysteria in STL. Many factors on/off the ice would lead to Salomon's hardships in the yrs following. The NHL expands + the WHA complicates the salary situation further.

Jay Randolph does the TV play x play on ch 11 KPLR, Gus Kyle would be his color guy for those 11 games the first season (Buck would do those 11 games alone on radio - or a non playing Blue, like Bob Plager would fill). Baseball begins in APR/May ..... Gus Kyle can be heard filing in during spring training (older brother Hal Kelly helps also). Salomon initially offers the job in year two to Danny Gallivan, but turns down the offer to dbl his salary in STL. Dan Kelly gets his salary increase to relocate to MO instead. The Salomon's are generous spending for the Arena and anything concerning the team.

The Arena was 37 yrs old when the Blues move in, it is the main reason STL is awarded the franchise. The Salomon's follow the "expansion process" down to the wire, with the sponsorship of Wirtz/Norris. If ANY of the expansion six don't meet the deadline - Baltimore was the back up locale, (all six meet this deadline).

The first three seasons are "magical" for the fan base in STL, exceeding expectations to the entire NHL. Envy by many in the press, equally loathed by other teams. The conservative original six weren't eagerly helpful towards the '67 expansion six. The early 70s would often resemble a soap opera for the St Louis Blues. Ask anyone who worked for the Salomon's, you rarely hear anything negative. They wanted the Blues to succeed in the worst way, unfortunately bad health for father & son would complicate their lives. The bad decisions are easy to critique decades afterwards.

Excellent points, all.

The Wirtz family in Chicago, who owned both the St. Louis Arena and the St. Louis Braves CHL team that was the Blackhawks' top farm team, and who patriarch was the powerful president of the NHL Board or Governors, made it a condition of NHL expansion ownership for the Salomons to take the aging, decaying white elephant Arena off their hands, since the Wirtzes paid little attention to the dank, smelly ol' barn when the Braves played there....when KWK Radio aired ONLY the third period of home games.

For St. Louis families who had gone to Police Circuses, Fireman's Rodeos, and ice shows at The Arena all those decades, their first Blues game was a marvel, seeing the astounding improvements the Salomons financed. For those first three years, upon entering the Arena, the first smell was of fresh paint. It was like the Golden Gate Bridge, parts of it being painted every day. People around the league called the ol' barn the NHL's palace.

[Bob39]

Of all the fandom's I am a part of, being a Blues fan has a different feel. I think for those of us who know the history (especially those of you who lived it; the first game I ever saw involved Guy Hebert for reference) there is a special kind of gratitude that we have the team at all. There were so many times when it could have gone the other way. So many shaky ownership situations and underfunded operations. Yet the franchise has persisted and in many ways thrived. Whatever happens in game three and four, the Blues are flush with young talent and should be good for years to come. More importantly, I can say with confidence that there will be a team in St. Louis for my kids to take their kids to games. As a town that has lost five major sports teams, we don't take that for granted.

[11WSChamps]

The Blues' first season had Jack Buck announcing many games, with Jay Randolph stepping in once Cardinals baseball started, but on that magical night when Ron Schock's Game 7 double-OT midnight goal vs. Minnesota put them into the Finals vs. mighty Montreal, neither Buck nor Randolph was available, so the PBP was called by......wait for it......Gus Kyle (the mind reels), with KMOX Sports Open Line host/Globe-Demagogue Sports Editor Bob Burnes on color.

I went to bed before either the Cardinals or Blues game was over. I woke up to a note from Mom, reading "Blues won. Cardinal's (sic) lost."

Had the Blues not moved on to play Montreal, with Dan Kelly in town for 4 days with the Canadiens for Games 1 & 2 at The Arena, one wonders who Buck (as KMOX Sports Director) would have hired for the Blues job. No way was Jack doing hockey again.

I wasn't using Buck as a reference to his short stint as a hockey PBP for the Blues but rather as part of the culture of growing up listening to one of the icons of the industry in St. Louis with the Cardinals of course.

[seattleblue]

Of all the fandom's I am a part of, being a Blues fan has a different feel. I think for those of us who know the history (especially those of you who lived it; the first game I ever saw involved Guy Hebert for reference) there is a special kind of gratitude that we have the team at all. There were so many times when it could have gone the other way. So many shaky ownership situations and underfunded operations. Yet the franchise has persisted and in many ways thrived. Whatever happens in game three and four, the Blues are flush with young talent and should be good for years to come. More importantly, I can say with confidence that there will be a team in St. Louis for my kids to take their kids to games. As a town that has lost five major sports teams, we don't take that for granted.

I hear you about this. There are "roars of the crowd" in every sport but I heard a different guttural tone in the cheers in the Arena than at Busch. I think back to being in grade school and that incredible old scoreboard that used to hang in the middle. All organ music (no I am not that organ guy from way back but I remember his obsession). When everyone would jump up at the same time when a goal was scored is just about the purest thing for me.

I went off to college and the team there SUCKED. like 1-24-3 sucked. zero roars of the crowd, ever. I would be back home at the Arena then in a mostly empty dead rink. I began calling the play by play for the team. I only ever wanted to be Dan Kelly. In my class' senior year they started 1-7 and went off for the holiday. Then somehow they turned it around and won their annual tournament and won 5 of 6 games. All of a sudden for the first time ever there was a chance of fans getting into a Friday/Saturday night home game. I felt compelled inside to come up with something that would be like being back at the Arena, so I brainstormed. I came up with an idea, I thought it was so-so but I couldn't think of anything better. I wanted fans to come to the game and do a coordinated thing at a specific time. The idea was throwing tennis balls onto the ice at the opposing goalie after the first goal was scored. The reason for tennis balls is I needed some object that was both not going to hurt anyone, be easy to clean up (not affect the ice surface), and that everyone already had access to. Anyone can get a tennis ball. But I still felt meh about this idea. Over at Cornell their student section was top class, really into many distinct time-honed chants, so that was a model. But we had nothing to build on. Plus how am I going to get the word out to everyone to do this? This is January 1993. This is pre-AOL. We didn't even have internet at school 24/7 it was 21/7 with three shutdown hours between 3-6am, and we were leading edge. So there I was, trying to cobble some "go to all the frats/sororities to their weekly meetings to spread the word" when i had the sudden inspiration to craft an email mimicking one of those old chain letters where if you send it on to 5 people you get great luck and if you don't you get doom. So I did my best wit, crafted a chain mail about the reason our school's honor required throwing tennis balls at the Princeton goalie (i picked them because they were the next game on the schedule that Friday, no other reason). I sent the email once to the freshmen I was advising and my fellow advisers. Once to 20 people right before the internet shut down for the night. The next afternoon, Wednesday, I had received this email back six times. And then it unfolded beautifully, like in a dream, for the first goal, midway through the first period. I tell you it rained tennis balls for minutes. I felt like, ok I can do things in life. Then I protected this and tried to make it a tradition by sending the same email before the Princeton game four consecutive years on the theory that once every class had always done it, it would get lost in tradition and thus keep happening. Next year will be year 33 of it happening and it's the #1 game they bring recruits to, such as Lee Stempniak.